Lola's Secret (15 page)

“I owe it to Denise. She’s been so patient. She’s tried again and again with Ellen. Lily has tried. They are very nice people, Lola. I don’t know what Ellen has told you about them—”

“It’s possibly best I don’t repeat it.”

“They’re still trying with Ellen. We’re all trying. But I can’t compete with Anna’s memory. And I need to have a life too. Ellen is everything to me, but she can’t behave like this. If she wins now—”

“Wins? It’s a contest, then?”

“You know what I mean. We’re at a stalemate. I’ve said if she doesn’t come with me for Christmas, then I’m canceling everything. Neither of us do anything. It will just be a normal, ordinary boring day.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“Of course not! I want to be with Denise and her daughter, having fun, and I want to be with Ellen and know she’s having fun too. But that’s impossible. If she joins us, I know she’ll have a terrible time. And if she’s having a terrible time, then I know I will too.” He sighed heavily.

“What if she were to get a separate invitation for Christmas? One that takes the pressure off you both, gives you a break, her a break, and buys you all a little breathing space?”

“Invitation? From who?”

“Me, of course. I’m being purely selfish, Glenn. I’m holding the fort here at the motel for a few days over Christmas and I fear I may have overstretched myself. I need an assistant. Preferably a twelve-year-old assistant who is also a blood relative and currently lives in Hong Kong.”

“But it’s Christmas, Lola. A time for families. Ellen and I should be together.”

“You’ve fallen for all the advertising, too? Your own advertising? Glenn, Christmas isn’t one universal happy day for everybody. There’s too much pressure, too many demands. So why don’t we give her a different kind of Christmas this year? You have your Christmas with Denise and her daughter. I’ll have Ellen here with me. I’ll spoil her in person. You spoil her from afar. We’ll also tell her the truth, that I demanded you send her to me.”

“What? Tell her you rang me out of the blue and said you really need her help over Christmas and would I please put her on a plane to you?”

“Isn’t that exactly what just happened? So you’ll be telling her the truth. Think about it, Glenn. Talk to her when you get home from work. I’m in my room now for the night. Please tell her to feel free to call me to verify any facts.”

E
LLEN
’
S CALL CAME
exactly two hours later. “Is it true, Lola? You really need me?” There were still tears but she sounded much brighter. “I’d love to come. I’d
love
to. And Dad can have his Christmas with Denise and Lily and I don’t have to, so we’ll both be happy. Are you sure?”

“I’m not an escape route and this won’t be a holiday, Ellen. You’ll be working hard every minute of every day you’re with me. You do realize that?”

“Are you going to pay me or is it slave labor?”

Lola laughed. “We’ll decide that when I see you in action.”

“Thanks, Lola. Very, very much.”

“You are very, very welcome. But there is a condition attached.”

“Anything.”

“I want you to be polite to Denise and Lily from now on. More than polite. I want you to be well mannered and as friendly to them as I know you can be. I want you to behave in a way that would make me proud to see, and your mother, your grandparents, aunts, and uncles proud to see. And that would also set a good example to your cousins if they were able to see you too.”

There was silence.

“Ellen?”

“How will you know if I’ve been good or bad?”

“I have a spy planted in your house. He’s disguised as your father.”

“I’ll try.” A pause. “I will, Lola, I promise. It will be much easier now, anyway, now that I know I don’t have to spend Christmas with them.”

And so my evil plan has worked, Lola thought. “There’s just one other little matter we need to discuss. All of this has to be our little secret for now. If your grandparents and aunts knew you were making a surprise visit, they’d cancel their trips away and none of us want that. I’ll work out the dates with your father so you stay on long enough to see everyone, I promise. You can be my special Christmas secret, and then I’ll produce you out of a hat when they all arrive back in the Valley for New Year, okay?”

“That sounds
perfect
,” Ellen said. “I’d love to be your secret.”

“Good girl.”

There were smiles in both their voices.

N
EIL CAME OUT
of his bedroom. Rick looked up in surprise.

“Don’t look so shocked.”

“I’m sorry, but I am. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“I have to go to Centrelink.”

“I saw the letters they’ve been sending you. They hounding you a bit?”

A shrug from Neil. “Usual bullshit. They’ll cut off my benefits if I don’t ‘present myself’ for an interview.”

“Do you want to head out for a drink later?” Rick said. “My treat.”

“No thanks.”

Rick waited until he heard the front door shut. Waited longer until he was completely sure Neil had gone. What he was about to do broke all the rules of house sharing. But how often did he get a phone call like the one he’d got at work the day before, from Neil’s mum? She’d been in tears. “I’m so worried about him, Rick. He tells me he’s fine, but I know he’s not. Is it drugs? Is that what’s wrong? Have you noticed him taking anything, or drinking too much?”

Rick told the truth. “I don’t even see him anymore. He just stays in his room all the time.”

“Something’s wrong, I know it is. Please, Rick, could you look in his room? He must go out some time.”

“He doesn’t. Mrs. Harris, I’m sorry, but he’s in there when I go to work and he’s in there when I come back. He’s just going through a bad time, I guess. Wants to be alone.”

“He’s been like this for months, though. Please, Rick, if you get the chance, would you just take a look? See if it’s drugs, or alcohol? If I know, I can try to do something about it.”

“It’s snooping.”

“Rick, please. I’m worried sick.”

He’d agreed, reluctantly. He’d been worried about Neil at the start, too, all that time locked away in his room, but no matter how many times he’d asked him out for a beer, or to share something he’d made for dinner, the answer had been no. There were only so many times he could shout through the bedroom door at him, invite him to do stuff. He’d taken the hint eventually. Neil just wanted to be left alone. Fair enough. Rick felt like that sometimes too.

But Mrs. Harris had been so insistent. Rick figured this morning would be his best chance. It could be days again before Neil left the house. He went to Neil’s bedroom door, expecting it to be locked. Neil had been so secretive lately he was hardly going to leave it wide open. It
was
locked. What Neil probably didn’t know was that Rick had a spare key. The lease was in his name, he had copies of all the apartment keys. It felt bad, and wrong to do it, but he kept thinking of Mrs. Harris. He got the spare key, came back, and unlocked the door.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. Not of drink or drugs, but of a stale room, shut up for too long. The blinds were down. The only light came from the computer glowing in the corner. Beside it, a printer, also switched on, making a soft humming noise. There was a radio too. Switched off.

He didn’t turn on the main light yet. There was enough coming in from the hallway. The room was surprisingly tidy. He didn’t know what he’d expected—clothes everywhere, empty pizza boxes, rubbish. It looked … well, it just looked normal, he thought. Not like a drug den, anyway.

He’d better get started, he realized. He had less than an hour to find whatever it was he was supposed to be looking for. “Sorry, mate,” he said aloud. “This is for your mum.”

He looked in the bedside cupboard, the wardrobe, under the bed, under the pillow, wondering whether he should be wearing gloves to hide his fingerprints. He was careful at least to leave everything as he’d found it. There was nothing unusual—no bottles of vodka, no syringes, no cigarette papers, not even any dope. The most exciting thing he found was a couple of bottles of sleeping tablets in one of the drawers. Hardly anything to worry about, millions of people took those.

“Something’s wrong with him,” Mrs. Harris had said. “He’s different. If you can find anything at all that might give me a clue, please, Rick …”

“I swear, mate, your mum begged me to do this,” he said aloud again. He went over to the computer desk. Checked the drawers. Again, nothing unusual, pens, some envelopes. There were a few sheets of paper on the printer. He picked them up, gingerly, between two fingers. It was a printed bus ticket, with a sheet of terms and conditions attached. He frowned. Neil hadn’t said he was going anywhere. Mind you, Neil hadn’t said much about anything lately. Rick took it over to the doorway to get enough light to see it, still reluctant to turn on the main light. What he saw made him frown even more. According to this printout, Neil was booked to go from Broken Hill to a place called Clare on Christmas Eve. There was no return ticket. Was he moving to Clare? Where was Clare anyway? There was another sheet of paper on the printer. Confirmation of a booking in the name of Neil Harris at a motel called the Valley View, also in Clare. For three nights, by the looks of it. Over Christmas.

He checked his watch. He’d been in here for fifteen minutes already. He had another forty minutes at the most. He quickly went to the front door and put the security chain on. If Neil did come back unexpectedly, hopefully the noise of the door rattling would buy enough time to get out of his room.

Was this enough to ring Mrs. Harris about? The clue she’d been looking for? “Your son’s gone quiet and weird because he’s been busy booking a one-way bus ticket to some place miles away.”

Maybe if he was able to find out what was in this Clare place, he might know what else he should be looking for and have something more interesting to tell Mrs. Harris. Maybe there was a famous hippy commune there, or a cult, or a religious order he was planning on joining …

Neil had been doing all the booking on the computer. That was the obvious place to start. Unfortunately, Rick was good at repairing broken windscreens, but not so good on computers. He clicked on one symbol on the screen and then another. Nothing happened.

He rang his sister. She worked as a secretary. She’d know what to do. “Quick question and I can’t explain why yet. I’m at a computer. How do I get that Web page to find things out on?”

“What?”

He repeated the question. She told him off for being so abrupt—he didn’t mind, she was always telling him off about something—and then she talked him through the process, until he had a search engine page in front of him. He typed in the word
Clare
while she waited on the other end of the phone. Up came a tourist Web page. He clicked on it and had a quick look at the different sections. It was a winegrowing place. There were lots of vineyards, restaurants, old stone pubs, a few motels, a caravan park. Maybe Neil had applied for a job in one of the wineries or in one of the pubs or motels even? That would explain the one-way ticket. “Funny time to go, though, at Christmas,” he said.

“What?” His sister was still waiting.

“Sorry, thinking aloud.”

“Fascinating. You’re lucky I’m not busy today.”

Maybe that was it. Neil had applied for a job, got it, was starting around Christmas and didn’t know how to tell his mum. It could be that simple, couldn’t it? And if so, would he have had to write a job application, maybe? Rick was really starting to feel like a detective now. Having fun, even. He checked his watch. Thirty minutes gone. He had about twenty minutes max to find—

“Can I go now?” It was his sister. “Or do you want me to listen to your heavy breathing all morning?”

“Is there a way of finding out what someone’s been doing on their computer?”

“Rick, what’s going on? Have you joined the cops or something?”

“I’ll explain later, I promise. Please, I haven’t got much time.”

“You’re in a hostage situation now?” She sighed, then talked him through it. How to go to Word documents. He followed her directions, clicked on a file or two. Nothing.

“Your mysterious subject might have deleted them already. You can check the websites someone’s been visiting, if that’s any help?”

He may as well while he was here. She talked him through that process as well. So simple, he was amazed. He should think about getting a computer himself. Yep, there it all was, under something called Internet search history. A long list of all the websites Neil had been looking at recently. A very long list. He glanced down them, reading them aloud.

“Rick, I have to go. My boss has just come in—”

She was gone before he had a chance to say thanks. He kept scrolling down through the list. No wonder Neil never came out of his room. He had too much to do in here. And no need to go outside the house either these days, Rick realized, if all of this stuff was at your fingertips.

There were bus company websites, yes. The same Clare Valley site Rick himself had briefly looked at. A Website for a motel there too, called the Valley View. He checked the printout. Yes, it was the same place.

He moved down through the list, feeling weird but unable to stop now. It was kind of like reading someone’s diary, he thought, uncomfortably. There were a few porn sites. Music sites. There were loads of different chat rooms. He clicked on one. People talking to each other about everything under the sun, from films to music to computer games. A bit strange, in Rick’s opinion, to talk to people by computer instead of stepping outside his bedroom occasionally and talking to his real housemate, but that was still okay, wasn’t it? Nothing for Mrs. Harris to worry about there?

Then he reached another group of sites on the list. He clicked on one, then another, a third, a fourth. He wondered at first whether they were sites about new films. New computer games, maybe. Some kind of really weird porn sites, even. But the more he read, the more sites he clicked between, the more he realized what it was Neil had been doing in here for hours and days on end.

He’d been researching ways to commit suicide.

Rick’s hands started shaking. He clicked off all the sites, panicking now, clicking on Close as his sister had told him, backing out, site by site, away from Neil’s secret life, swearing out loud, convinced Neil was about to come back in, catch him at it. Finally, the screen looked the same as it had at the start. He pushed back the chair. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as he could. He was reaching for his phone even as he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him, locked it, and went into the kitchen.

“Mrs. Harris? It’s me. I think you should get here as soon as you can.”

The phone was ringing. Tony let it. Helen was at the shops. He’d got out of the habit of answering any calls. He found it too hard, making polite chitchat with people who never wanted to talk to him in any case. After the accident, he hadn’t been able to go to work for a week either, until Helen had almost dragged him there. “Your staff need you.”

It was still ringing. He picked it up now, heard a slight delay and then the warm, familiar tone of Katie. “Dad! How are you? Is it still boiling over there? It’s
freezing
here. I’m actually wearing a thermal vest, like a mountaineer!” It was her usual rapid-fire way of speaking. “What about you? Are you going okay?”

“Not bad,” he said. “Your mum’s out. Do you want to leave a message or call back? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s great. I’m just getting organized for Christmas. I want to set a time for our call. I don’t want to ring when you’re both off singing carols or in case you’ve headed down to the beach.”

“Nowhere near a beach this year. Vineyards, I think, rather than the sea.”

“What?”

“We’re going away for Christmas. Your mother’s idea. We’re going to stay somewhere in South Australia. We’re heading off on Christmas Eve. We’ll be away for about three days, I think. A place called Cla—”

“You can’t!”

“What?”

“You can’t go away. Look, I’ll call back. I need to make a phone call. I’ll ring back as soon as I can. Bye.”

Ten minutes later, Helen was just coming in with the shopping when the phone rang again. Tony hadn’t had a chance to tell her about Katie’s call yet. He answered this one, too. It wasn’t Katie calling back. It was Liam, calling from Barcelona.

“Dad? What’s this about you going away for Christmas? You never go away for Christmas.”

“We are this year. Hold on. I’ll get your mother.”

Tony watched as Liam obviously said the same thing to Helen. She smiled. “And hello, darling. Yes, your dad and I are well. No, I know we don’t normally”—she laughed—“I hadn’t realized you and Katie were so set in your ways. Why? We needed the change in scenery. We’re driving there on Christmas Eve. It’s about five hours away—” She turned to Tony, astonished. “Liam’s just hung up on me.”

“Mrs. Kaminski? Hello, this is Glenda, your daughter’s temporary secretary in Melbourne. Yes, it was very nice to talk to you last week too. Mrs. Kaminski, I hope you don’t mind me interfering, and I am perfectly aware I am stepping over many boundaries and breaking many long-established secretarial rules, but frankly, I see my job as being one of putting out fires and finding solutions to otherwise insurmountable problems. Do you have a minute to talk? It’s about Christmas. Your daughter and Christmas, to be precise. I’ve had an idea.”

Try as she might, June couldn’t get the picture of Belle and Chloe turning up at the bakery out of her mind. She told her husband all about it.

“It’s not fair, Bill. Those little kids, being used like pawns between their parents. Holly’s exhausted. I’m sure she does most of the mothering, and the fathering, while those two selfish parents of hers do nothing but shout at each other. I said to her, I’d like to knock their heads together. They’re as bad as each other, playing games, using the kids as weapons. Do you think they’re even aware of the effect all their fighting is having on their children? If they only knew Holly and the little girls were thinking of running away—”

“So tell them.”

“I just wish there was some—what did you say?”

“Tell them. Maybe they should know.”

“What, just march up to them both in the street?”

“That might be a bit public. You could find out where they both work, couldn’t you? Though maybe it’s better to go to their house, talk to them both at the same time.”